Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Haulage charges set to go up

The Association of Malaysian Hauliers (AMH) will raise its haulage tariff guidelines by 20 per cent, effective June 1.


The AMH Tariff Guideline is used in the market by both customers and hauliers as a benchmark to negotiate rates.


The final negotiated rates differ customer to customer, depending on the services required, volume of businesses, destinations and other operational factors unique to each customer and their preferred haulier.

In a statement, AMH president Datuk Ahmad Shalimin Ahmad Shaffie blamed the rise on escalating operating costs and operational inefficiencies.

"Shortage of drivers, higher wages, increased costs for spare parts and tyres are some examples of factors driving up operating costs.


"Customers' demand for better services has also resulted in record-high investment in Information Technology as well as Glo-bal Positioning System (GPS)," he said 

The statement said that long delays at container depots have badly affected the productivity of haulage operators.

The current productivity rate is estimated to average two to 2.5 trips per day compared to the previous three to five trips per day for each truck.

The association estimates that each truck wastes up to RM20 per trip due to these delays, not to mention the loss in productivity and foregone revenues.

There are more than 200 container haulage operators in the country.

AMH also announced that the collection of trailer detention charges will be outsourced toan external third party come June 1.

"The constant monitoring of trailers and collection of detention charges from customers are tedious and costly, which sometimes lead to contentious arguments with customers." 

"As such, members of AMH collectively agreed to outsource the monitoring and collection task to a third party agent so that they may focus on their core competency of transportation," Shalimin said.

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